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Psychologist Steve Taylor of Leeds Beckett University claims in his new book and a research paper that humans have the ability to actually slow time using just our minds. He calls these moments “time expansion experiences,” or TEEs, for short.
In fact, that is the name of his new book: Time Expansion Experiences: The Psychology of Time Perception and the Illusion of Linear Time. In it, and less in depth in a post on the Leeds Beckett University website, he explains his theories.
He also discusses “time cessation experiences,” or TCEs, in which time appears to disappear altogether. Interestingly, Taylor points out in the description of his book, “TEEs and TCEs are almost always positive, with a sense of calm well-being, clarity and heightened awareness.”
In an article Steve Taylor recently wrote for The Conversation, he says, “We all know that time seems to pass at different speeds in different situations. For example, time appears to go slowly when we travel to unfamiliar places. A week in a foreign country seems much longer than week at home.
“Time also seems to pass slowly when we are bored, or in pain. It seems to speed up when we’re in a state of absorption, such as when we play music or chess, or paint or dance. More generally, most people report time seems to speed up as they get older.
“However, these variations in time perception are quite mild. Our experience of time can change in a much more radical way.”
He says TEEs often “can occur in an accident or emergency situation, such as a car crash, a fall or an attack.” He also states that in his research, published in the Journal of Humanistic Psychology, he has “found that around 85% of people have had at least one TEE” and around half of those occurred “in accident and emergency situations.”
Taylor also believes TEEs are common in the world of sports, moments of stillness and presence, and through the use of psychedelic substances, such as LSD or ayahuasca.
“But why? One theory is that these experiences are linked to a release of noradrenaline (both a hormone and an neurotransmitter) in emergency situations, related to the ‘fight or flight’ mechanism,” he explains. “However, this doesn’t fit with the calm well-being people usually report in TEEs.”
Taylor says another theory he has considered “is that TEEs are an evolutionary adaptation. Maybe our ancestors developed the ability to slow down time in emergency situations – such as encounters with deadly wild animals or natural disasters – to improve their chances of survival. However, the above argument applies here too: this doesn’t fit with the non-emergency situations when TEEs occur.
“A third theory is that TEEs aren’t real experiences, but illusions of recollection. In emergency situations, so this theory goes, our awareness becomes acute, so that we take in more perceptions than normal. These perceptions become encoded in our memories, so that when we recall the emergency situation, the extra memories create the impression that time passed slowly.”
He concludes that TEEs are a real altered state of consciousness. But is it possible to speed up and slow down time at will? That is what he is trying to figure out.